Opinion | Telegram & Gazette | December 14, 2018
It was a beautiful fall day, with cool crisp air and plenty of sunlight filtering through the partially bare hardwood trees when I set out to hike the Ball Hill loop in the state Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) Leominster State Forest.
The trail heads southeast from the parking lot for Lower Crow Hill Pond, where families swim and picnic during the warmer months. This beach is the most popular attraction at the 4,200-acre, nearly 100-year old state forest, which also features hiking, mountain biking, fishing, and other soul replenishing activities.
As I headed toward Berry Hill, elevation 1,185 feet, I planned to walk the loop to Black Bear Run, which passes just south of the Fitchburg-Westminster landfill. At the junction of the Red Oak and Ball Hill trails, I cut the loop short by bushwhacking due north toward Black Bear Run. I hadn’t gone more than a few yards when I heard it, the sound of diesel rigs at the landfill just to the north.
If Waste Management, the City of Fitchburg, and the town of Westminster get their way, this wooded upland landscape will become an extension of the existing dump. Black Bear Run will be no more, dug out and buried under a mountain of trash. Gone with it will be the buffer that protects beach goers from the industrial din and other odious landfill effects. This would be a colossal, irreversible mistake.
As I reached Black Bear Run, I could see the rigs I had heard earlier, lined up, idling and waiting to dump their loads. I walked down the hill to the edge of the tree line to get a better look, where a couple of fences and a ravine separate the forest from the dump.
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